Much of what Jeremy Clarkson, the host of a British-TV motoring show, writes in his recent book, I Know You Got Soul, Machines With That Certain Something (2006, Penguin Books, 244 pages), rings true. But his core premise does not.
While admitting that even the world's best machines fall short of perfection, Clarkson insists they “have soul”, partly due to a few flaws. He devotes each of the 21 chapters to an example, telling the tales and weighing the successes or failures of everything from Concorde airplanes and Rolls-Royce cars to the Hoover Dam, AK47 machine guns and the Millennium Falcon, a movie spaceship (in Star Wars).
Actually, the chosen machines have no souls. But if readers can suspend disbelief to join Clarkson as he assesses which qualify as the best in history and why, he'll reward them with information, insight and flashes of humor.
“I suppose the inspiration for this book came from my reaction to the Concorde crash in Paris,” Clarkson says. “Normally when a plane goes down we mourn for the people on board, but on this occasion I found myself mourning, most of all, the death of the machine. How could something so wondrous and dazzling have come to grief?”
As the author strives to be funny, he succeeds only sporadically. Many intended jokes sputter and misfire, like neglected engines.
Worse, contradictions quickly appear. Clarkson dedicates the book to his children, “ who had to walk round the house on tiptoes, and not listen to Radio One, while it (the book) was being written”. Flip another page and the author acknowledges his wife, “who helped by locking the children in the cellar for three months”. Did the youngsters prowl the premises on tiptoes or were they imprisoned below? Such careless inconsistency makes other details look suspect.
The author competently describes his chosen machines, covering their looks, functions and eccentricities. Beauty always earns admiration: “But the best thing about the Hoover Dam is the way it looks. With its art deco intake towers and that preposterous slope, which seems to accentuate the height when you stand on the top, it is every bit as beautiful as the canyon in which it sits. And that, believe me, is saying something.”
Evidently, the best machines need not be complex. Consider the AK47: “So why then, if it's heavy, flawed and nothing special, has it been such a hit? Well, the simple answer is its simplicity. In a competition to find the least-complicated machine ever made, it would tie in first place with the mousetrap.”
But Clarkson's prone to exaggeration. About the Phantom, a Rolls-Royce car, he says: “This really is a vast car. And, because the Laws of Automotive Styling say that the tyres must be exactly half the height of the car itself, they come up to my thigh. Then you have the radiator grille, which is bigger than my first flat, and the bonnet, on which you could quite easily have a game of cricket. Certainly you could have a very major crash in a Phantom and simply not know.”
Readers will crave color photos in support of Clarkson's words. Fortunately, these appear, enough to fill 32 pages.
Along the way, Clarkson discusses many mechanical mishaps, but also reassures: “The modern jet engine is now so reliable, and the on-board computers so foolproof, that all commercial airlines have a safety record that makes granite look tricky and unstable. The fact is that if you flew on a plane every day, statistically it would be 13,000 years before you hit the ground in a big fireball.”
Clarkson gains authority on machines as the host of Top Gear, a BBC show. Together with a wife, three children (and a few machines too), he lives in Oxfordshire, England.
Despite the author's best efforts, this book lacks soul too. But for anyone mechanically inclined, it's a good read, and that's what counts the most.
Approval rating: 59 per cent.
For more information: www.penguin.com
(October 19, 2009)
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